China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower

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A note to prospective readers, this book is primarily interested in domestic Chinese politics and history, and relatively unconcerned with foreign policy (that, or during the period it covers China was relatively unconcerned with foreign policy). Also, the book might better be titled "China Between Mao and Xi" -- the period between Xi's accession and the present day is covered merely in the epilogue, in much less detail than previous decades. This was disappointing, since I would have liked to better understand China's present-day footing (e.g. its demographic challenges, or the Belt and Road Initiative). It's likely the source materials the author worked with for pre-Xi times are much harder to come by the closer you get to the present, so I understand, but I would have liked more since the book's account of the rest of its subject matter is quite good. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.

China After Mao, The Rise of a Superpower by Frank Dikotter China After Mao, The Rise of a Superpower by Frank Dikotter

However, Dikotter has woven a compelling narrative regarding how each leader in the reforms era has been ruthless in asserting the party’s dominant position, notwithstanding the price they had to pay. If one takes into consideration Deng’s ruthless purging of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, Jiang Zemin’s ‘three represents’ theory and its adept interpretation followed by Hu Jintao’s pronouncements regarding the unquestionable supremacy of the party, Xi Jinping’s policy of party first is more of a continuity rather than an aberration. Essential reading for anyone who wants to know what has shaped today's China and what the Chinese Communist Party's choices mean for the rest of the world' New Statesman Books of the YearThe question remains whether Xi and his minions can manage the complexities of a modern economy while continuing to command the means of production, financing and resources that make it run. Reading this book makes me think the answer is a strong no. That begs the question, what happens to China's economy when the bills come due, and what ripples does that cause for the larger world economy? One of the few books that anyone who wants to understand the twentieth century simply must read' New Statesman

China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower – The Irish Times China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower – The Irish Times

A blow-by-blow account … An important corrective to the conventional view of China's rise.”-- Financial Times The country was still struggling badly in the early 1990s when Deng made his famous “southern tour” and it later sailed dangerously close to the wind after both the 1998 Asian economic crisis and the global one in 2008 – the latter a point that is largely absent from most appraisals of that particular event. While one needs to appreciate the ingenuity of the party leadership to develop very innovative policy measures from time to time to handle the contradictions of a ‘socialist market economy,’ one wonders about the sustainability of the Chinese governance model. With the economic modernisation project more than four decades old, the scope for ‘ad-hocism’ in policymaking is increasingly getting constricted. Zhao Ziyang seen supporting Tiananmen protests, supporting thesis that popular discontent only poses a real threat if used for intra-elite conflict In China After Mao , award-winning author Frank Dikötter delves into the history of China under the communist party – from the death of Chairman Mao in 1976 up until the moment when Xi Jinping stepped to the fore in 2012.This book is a clear, well-written recounting of the leadership changes of the Chinese Communist Party since the death of Mao. His narrative documents the fits and starts of the CCP leadership as they try to balance a modern economy but keep control of the means of production. None of it has gone particularly well in Dikotter's analysis. Another significant event is the Internet boom in the late 1990s. Not only it gave birth to some prominent private companies such as Sina and Baidu, but also it changed the social lives of everybody in China. Through online news, blogs, and microblogs, ordinary Chinese people follow world events, share their life stories, and participate in social movements. The thriving of the Internet is accompanied by ever-increasing Government regulation and censorship. The cat-and-mouse game between censorship and evasion profoundly shaped the Chinese online culture and the relationship between the Government and the mass. Dikotter’s latest work is highly recommended for those who want to make sense of the intriguing developments and develop an informed understanding of China’s political and economic evolution in the post-Mao era. Dikotter has done a commendable job of unearthing some archival and other relevant primary sources (including party and other official documents in Mandarin) to uncover some of the most critical periods. Every piece of information,” Dikötter writes, “is unreliable, partial or distorted. Where China is concerned,” he concludes, “we don’t even know what we don’t know.” It will be increasingly difficult for Western China specialists to write with authority based only on previous Western publications or on Chinese public statements. We remain in Frank Dikötter's debt' LITERARY REVIEW

China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower: Frank Dikötter China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower: Frank Dikötter

A pulsating account that makes clear how important it is to look beneath the surface when it comes to any period or region in history – but above all to China' Peter Frankopan, TLS Frank Dikötter, in his research for this history of the People’s Republic since Mao Zedong’s death, benefited from an unprecedented opening-up of party archives from 1996 on, which lasted until Xi Jinping’s accession to power a decade ago. It’s an ironic detail, given that China After Mao covers the period marked by Deng Xiaoping’s vaunted “reform and opening up” that would ultimately change China irrevocably.

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Let me briefly highlight these continuities in three significant aspects. First, each generation of leaders in the post-Mao era, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping, has been uncompromising whenever the centrality of the party-state has been questioned. Continuity of the party’s numero uno status, irrespective of the leader in charge, has been an inherent and integral part of domestic governance. China watchers have been harping on the growing dominance of the party under the current leader, Xi Jinping. While many of China’s western supporters believed that growing prosperity would bring growing demands for political freedom and participation, Xi believes that the separation of powers, judicial autonomy and freedom of speech represent a mortal threat to the party, and that once China’s people are materially better off, they will agree with the party’s claim that China’s socialism is superior to western capitalism. As the early reformer Zhao Ziyang – later disgraced for his opposition to the Tiananmen massacre – put it: “We are setting up special economic zones, not political zones. We must uphold socialism and resist capitalism.” The author takes us on a journey from the time after Mao's influence, in particular the influences of Deng Xiaoping and I would add Jiang Zemin. What and I would say most Western media have never portrayed is the propaganda plied by the CCP. The CCP as the author would assert, would say one thing to the world and censor those words to the people of the country. They of course, had their own double-speak for their own countryfolk. This is my main message that I take with me: according to Dikötter the 'age of China' does not exist and will never come. China is not in the good shape everyone thinks it is. He challenges the idea that China would have been on a long straight road to unprecedented economic success after Mao's death. He even states that China never really took the path of economic liberalization after 1989. The reason is simple: the leaders knew that the economy would collapse immediately, according to Dikötter. He also comes to the surprising conclusion that even after all the reforms, China is not that different from forty years ago. Rising debts, overcapacity at state-owned enterprises, decades of neglect of the countryside. According to him, China is therefore at a dead end.

China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower | Hoover

How propaganda is instilled from childhood to adulthood is glaring. External sources are prohibited. Everything tightly controlled by the state from economy, to media to education. How the people of China are so pliant is the micro-surveillance and constant attention paid to deviance, no matter how minute. A special economic zone in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, was blessed by Deng during a 1984 visit, becoming a center of foreign investment and technology. Cheap labor imported from the hinterland fled to the bright lights and higher pay across the bay. To counter the exodus free trade areas were established where local authorities made the decisions on foreign trade and provided better working conditions. While industry didn’t take hold import/export business did and opportunities in coming computer technology were taken. Sixteen new free zones were created with the provision they wouldn’t be run or funded by Beijing. Cases proliferated of stolen chemical and pharmaceutical formulas and led to the counterfeiting of household appliances, office equipment, industrial and agricultural machinery in a wild east of trade. As a summary of events in China since 1976, it probably does the job, although I can’t definitively say so since I’m a layperson. I will note that it reads more as summary-with-an-opinion than cutting analysis, although that’s not necessarily bad. Presumably the access to long-restricted archives gives it an edge over other, similar texts? The main question that this study of China after Mao revolves around is an examination of a seemingly plausible and widely accepted hypothesis: that an implementation of free market methods will lay the foundation, inevitably, for democratic political reform.Well, Dikotter does know his stuff. Lots of it is dry info on finance and all that, but it does show some problems China has had. Inflation, retrenchment - all that comes in and out. The last parts also show a shift since 1989 towards national patriotic education, which has led to a much more hostile relationship with much of he outside world. Frank Dikötter is a Dutch historian specialized in modern China. He is currently a professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong. Dikötter is known for his research on the Maoist era and his books, including "Mao's Great Famine," which won the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. “China After Mao” is Dikötter’s recapture of Chinese history between Mao’s death in 1976 and Xi Jinping’s throning in 2012. Contrary to the prevailing narrative of the “China miracle,” Dikötter describes China’s journey as a tyrannic ruler class stumbling through economic development and globalization. Dikötter’s work is hailed as a correction of the popular view, presenting a different story based on solid evidence. However, “China After Mao” is not a complete recount and should be considered together with other works. A leading historian of modern China. He is a rare scholar, adept in both Russian and Chinese . . . Combined with this linguistic skill, Dikötter has a writer's gift' EVENING STANDARD There are a number of problems with a tag line like “the most powerful man in the world,” the subtitle of this biography of Xi Jinping by German journalists Stefan Aust and Adrian Geiges, its publication shrewdly timed for the imminent confirmation of its subject’s third term in office, expected at next month’s party congress. For one thing, it begs more questions than it answers; it invites comparisons that can be deceptive, and it takes the display of power at face value. The reader would be wise to approach such claims with a degree of caution.